


Rites of Passage

by sarken



Category: Real News RPF
Genre: Gen, Inappropriate Relationships with Teenagers, Lesbian Character, TSP Comment Fic, The 80s AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 06:09:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel is conflicted when Keith gives her her first dirty magazine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rites of Passage

Her parents are going to kill her. Absolutely, positively, without a doubt _kill her_ if they find this in her room. She can still remember the fit they pitched when they found David's stack of Playboys -- she doesn't want to imagine how much worse it would be if they found one in _her_ room.

On the bright side, they might be so upset about the pornography they would forget to be upset about her nascent lesbianism.

Cheered by the fantasy, Rachel reaches for the phone and dials Keith's work number. She flops onto the bed and opens the magazine while she waits for the call to go through.

"Olbermann."

Rachel rolls her eyes. He even answers the phone like that at home. "You'll never guess what I found in my backpack today," she says, cradling the receiver against her shoulder.

There is silence on Keith's end of the line, followed by the sound of a door closing. "A pony?"

"No, but oddly enough, it does start with the letter P." She sighs and turns the page, wondering when she's going to stumble across the things got David grounded for three weeks. "I don't really know what I called to say. That I found it, I guess. But why'd you give it to me?"

Keith chuckles. "Kid, your first Playboy is a rite of passage."

"What makes you think it's my first?"

Silence.

Rachel sighs. "Sorry," she says, and she means it. Keith was trying to do something for her, something he thinks was nice. She doesn't need to ruin it with false bravado. "It is my first. I just...okay, so it's a rite of passage, but that's if you're a _boy_. I'm not."

"No, you're not." There's something strange in his voice, but it's gone when he says, "You like girls, though, so the same principles should apply."

Rachel turns another page, and this time she finds exactly what she's been expecting. She bites her lip. "I don't know..."

Rachel knows she likes girls, or at least she thinks she might, but she thinks that means she should want to touch the woman in the picture, and she _doesn't_. Everything about the model is sculpted and firm, too much like the boys she has dated and fucked. If this is what liking girls is about, she's not interested.

"Kid?"

Rachel isn't sure how long she's been quiet, but it's long enough for Keith to sound concerned. She shakes her head. "This is what you like?" she asks. She drops her hand onto the picture, makes herself trace the curve of the woman's perfect, round breast with her finger. She swallows hard and turns the page.

"What?"

The next picture doesn't make her feel any better. "The women in here. I mean, I -- I don't know. I know this is how women are supposed to look or whatever, but when you're looking for someone to marry or date or sleep with, this is really what you have in mind?"

Keith exhales noisily. "That's just fantasy stuff in there, kid. It's just something to look at or think about while you..." He laughs uncomfortably and lowers his voice. "I was gonna say 'while you jerk off.'"

Rachel feels her face go warm, and she wonders how much Keith thought about what he was doing when he slid the magazine into her backpack. "I think that's my point," she says, flicking the upper corner of the page with her index finger. "If it's fantasy, isn't it some sort of ideal? Are you just settling for -- for real women? And if you're not, if this isn't how you really expect a woman to look, how you really want her to look, then why not think about what you really want when you...you know?"

"Oh, boy," Keith mumbles. He sucks in a breath and lets it out with another nervous chuckle. "I'm trying to decide what I can say to you without getting in trouble."

"There's no one to get in trouble _with_." Rachel rolls her eyes. "Just say whatever. I can hear it, I'm seventeen. Besides, you bought me softcore porn. I don't think there are any lines left to cross."

"All right," Keith says, but there is a long pause before he speaks again. "I wanted to make sure you had something to look at or think about while you did whatever girls call jerking off. I wanted to help and I wanted to prove I was the person who would never care you were a lesbian. Except I confused you with a thirteen-year-old boy."

Rachel smiles tightly. "I do act like one."

There's the soft sound of Keith putting his hand over the mouthpiece, then some muffled conversation before Keith speaks into the phone again. "Look, I have to go, but do me a favor, kid?"

"What?"

"Throw the magazine out."

He hangs up, and Rachel should be annoyed that he told her what to do and hung up without a goodbye, but she thinks he knows perfectly well that she has no intention of listening to him. She picks up the magazine, pages back to one of the interviews, and then rolls over onto her back. She can't throw this out; her parents will find it in the trash. She'll just read the articles and then give it back to Keith.


End file.
